, 1887-01-15
THE RATS OF NEW YORK.
Millions OF the Pests AT Work All Over
tho City-Property Endangered.

Millions Of the Pests at Work All Over
the City-Property Endangered.
1t is safe to say hat there is not now u
building in the city not infested with
Norwegian rats. All the cats and human
rat catchers can at best but destroy an
insignificant proportion of them. AS a
matter OF fact. the brown Norwegian rat
is SO big and fierce that an ordinary cat
IL no match for him, and no cat possess
ing the usual instinct of self-preservation
will beard a cellarful of these rodents as
big as himself. Most of the uptown hotels
keep all the way from a dozen TO 100 cats
in their cellars, and even this number is
insufficient to keep their active foes from
penetrating to the rooms, destroying fur
niture and making timid people think
that burglars are ..a-burgling."
The most serious aspect of the rat ques-
ton, however, is, as above stated, that
New York's billion of Norwegian rats
are all the time burrowing beneath the
foundations of buildings, eating into pill
lars and supports and thus actually en-
~dangering life and property. And the
more they are driven from the houses
themselves the greater the danger, for
the rats, driven by %ferrets, weasels, poison
and cats from the living portions of a
house, take to the cellars, the sewers and
the great s~ubterranean world IT mold and
filth. Here they are not m )lested and
here they burrow and mine until more
thar one splendid edifice is to-day liable
to topple and collapse.
A six story building uptown was a few
months ago condemned as unsafe be-
canse one side of the structure had dan
~gerously settled. When the workmen
who tore down the house reached tho
cellar they found it literally paved with
rats, and it took an entire day to drown
them out by the use of a hose and fire
hydrant. Then it was revealed that the
rats had so burrowed under the supports
in order to get at a provision warehouse
the other side of the supporting wall
that the brick had given way and caused
the wall to fall.
IF the streets and sidewalks of New
York could be suddenly removed like u
cover to a box and the underground
world revealed said a well-known
builder, 1.-The sight would no only appal,
but alarm every house owner and
dweller in the city. 1t is a solid fact
that perhaps a billion of rats are every
second of the day and night burrowing
and mining beneath and around the gas
pipes, the water mains, the sewer mains
and into the very foundations of the
buildings. The fact is becoming a
serious one. l assure you, to builders, for
we already have to take into considera-
ton the ravages- of these pests, and what
the result will be ten years from now is
fearful to contemplate.
II feel safe in asserting that nearly all
the many recent cave-ins of buildings are
due to the borrowings of rats. OF course
iron buildings are safer in this respect
than wooden ones, but even in iron
structures many wooden supports are
commonly used, and the rats eat away
at them Until they are honeycombed,
likely as not thereby endangering the
stability of the structure and consequently
life"
"How long has this state of things pre-
vailed to your knowledge" was asked.
Only since the introduction and prop
agation of hat Norwegian rat. The old
American black rat, to the cellar born,
was not destructive of such solid proper
ties as wood and iron, that 1 know Of"
was the response.
ny, L was III "A south street prOvlS-
ion warehouse the other day" he con-
tinued, land happened to mention the
subject to the proprietor. He told me
hat rats had in two days eaten into a
dozen boxes Of cheese and lard and bored
holes in two or three cider barrels, letting
the cider all out into the cellar. The
next day he found about 100 rats dead
drunk on the floor from the effects of the
cider. 1t might seem incredible to you.
but from my own previous knowledge of
the penetrating powers and the omniver-
Gus appetite of the Norwegian rat | could
readily believe the statement"
Professor Jennings said that one of the
most dangerous features of the Norwegian
rat, aside from his propensity to under.
mine buildings, was that his bite was al
ways dangerous and usually fatal.
Il have never yet been bitten by one
Of the N%orwegians, said he, land l
take mighty good care not to be. | have
been bitten by the old black rat thousands
of times, but never with serious results,
and l understand that the bite of the Nor.
wegian rodent is almost as certain death
as that of Il cobra. New York journal.